


Pity the Child, But Not Forever

by NervousAsexual



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Collapse of the Soviet Union, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Major Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Name Changes, Post-Canon, Recovery, There's some talk about the Polish People's Republic and the Solidarity union, brief mentions of past Suicide Attempt, i swear i forgot there is already a very famous frederik meijer, including murder on the part of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, just so we're all forewarned, potential friendship, the name's spelled different so it's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27231562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Ten years down the road, Freddie runs into a familiar face.
Relationships: Svetlana Sergievsky & Freddie Trumper
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Pity the Child, But Not Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnabelleVeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/gifts).



Ten years ago the Soviet Union swore they'd make Frederick Trumper want to change his name, but in the end it wasn't his name at all. The name belonged to a man he'd never missed, and he figured if he was going to start over he would take his own name.

So ten years down the road, in the here and now, it's Fred Meyer who's half-dozing over his chessboard in the early summer sun. Ten years ago he wouldn't have noticed how pleasant the warm sun felt on his back or heard the discordant music of the traffic that rolls around the park or smelled that combination of exhaust, body odor, and blooming peonies that somehow sticks around all summer. Life is good, if for no better reason than because life couldn't have gotten much worse.

Fred--Freddie--Frederick props his chin in his hand and his elbow against the chessboard and takes a lazy look around at the other chess players. There aren't many, even on a beautiful day like today. Mostly old men bickering at each other in languages Freddie doesn't understand. It's his first time out in a while, and though he doesn't know any of their names he knows them all by face.

But today there's someone new. One of the old-timers, the one who always takes a table under the clock tower, is playing a kid. It seems to be a pretty good match, too. The kid isn't tall enough to see across the board from the folding chair she's sitting on, so she's got her legs tucked underneath her and long dark hair tied up on top of her head and one hand planted firmly on either side of the board, considering every possible move as if she doesn't notice the chess clock ticking away beside her. On her face is a look of concentration he's seen on professionals. That is the look of a child who knows what she wants.

_How old is she supposed to be?_ he wonders. He doesn't know the first thing about children but this one looks too young to be here alone. Sure enough, when he looks around the park he sees a middle-aged woman on a bench, smoking a cigarette and bouncing her knee up and down as she watches the kid play.

There's something familiar about her. Freddie stares at her sleepily. Something about the face. Lined with the unerasable marks of worry, shaped like a heart, framed by greying blonde hair cut into a bob. It's funny that he thinks of it now, after all this time, but she sort of looks like...

He snaps awake at that, sits up straight and looks harder. That's not reasonable, to see her here after all this time. It's probably just someone who looks like her, and it's not like he ever got to know her well enough to guess what she looks like today.

Still he finds himself getting up and walking over to her. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye as she saw him coming.

"This is going to sound out-of-the-blue," he told her. "But you're not... your name isn't Svetlana Sergievsky, isn't?"

Her eyes widen and a look crosses her face that is unmistakably fear.

"I don't know if you remember me. Your husband kicked my ass at chess a decade ago."

The fear finds its level. She eyes him critically.

"You are..." she says. Her accent is definitely Russian. "...the American. The lunatic."

Ouch. "Yeah, that's fair." Ten years ago he played the part as best he could. He didn't learn until four years ago that there was a reason the role came so naturally to him. "Trumper. Well, I used to be. Name change."

"Anatoly always said you were a brilliant lunatic who wasn't a lunatic at all."

"He said that about me?" For some reason the idea gives him a pleasant little thrill. "Do you mind if I sit? What are you doing in America?"

She gives him the side-eye but moves her purse so that he can take a seat beside her. "I am an American now."

"Yeah? Good for you." He doesn't keep up with politics but even he hasn't missed the fact that the Soviet Union is basically crumbling into dust. "We are pretty great."

She frowns at him.

"I'm mostly joking." Not entirely true; America was pretty great, in his opinion. "How about that one?" He nods over toward the kid, who is finally making her move. "She yours?"

For a moment Svetlana doesn't speak and it occurs to him that while he has a good idea who she is she doesn't have the slightest idea who he is. He could be a soviet spy, for all she knows.

"My daughter," she says at last. "Nadya."

He looks the kid over once more. The dark hair and eyes, the seriousness in the expression. "Holy shit. She's the spitting image of her dad."

"Very much so."

"Is he around too? Or did he find some other country to defect to?"

Svetlana blinks at him. "Anatoly?"

"Yeah. That was kind of his MO for a while. Win some, defect some. It'd be pretty funny after all that for him to become an American."

"No. Anatoly died before we came here."

All the happiness drains away and suddenly he's cold despite the sun. "What?"

"Yes. In Poland, not long after Nadya was born. He would be very proud of her, though."

"Yeah." It's mind-boggling. Yeah, it has been ten years, but somehow he'd always assumed Anatoly Sergievsky was still out there playing the Russian chess circuit. But he hasn't. Not only is he dead, he's been dead for almost a decade. "Why? I mean, what happened?"

"We emigrated there in '81. He got involved in Solidarity." Her voice is emotionless but her bitterness is clear from her expression. "He was murdered by the Ministry of Public Security. That is how we came to America. We were political refugees."

"That's..." He doesn't know what Solidarity is and he's only got a vague idea of what the Ministry of Public Security is, but from the name he knows it's nothing good. "Wow. I'm sorry."

She scoffs and puts out the stub of her cigarette against the bench. As she retrieves a new cigarette from the pack she offers him one. When he shakes his head she just shrugs and stuffs the pack back into her shirt pocket. "It was bound to happen. He..." She gestures meaninglessly. "It was another ideal for him. He couldn't die for chess so he died for this instead. I think his intention was always to become a martyr." She shakes her head. "What about you? You are still here. You were not murdered."

"Not for lack of trying," he mutters, but when she raises an eyebrow at him he shakes his head. "I'm kidding. I never meant anything to anybody, at least not enough to get murdered."

She tips her head sardonically.

Yeah, he can definitely tell she was married to Anatoly. "It's not that interesting a story. What are you doing these days? You look really settled for a refugee."

"We came here after he was murdered, in..." She squints at nothing, counting quietly to herself. "'84? Nadya is seven. It must have been '84." A bit of ash falls from her cigarette to her lap. Her hand is shaking just a little. "I am a custodial supervisor. Like janitor, but I tell others to clean up the messes."

That sounds... terrible. "You like it?"

"Eh." She shrugs. "It pays the bills. And I was not always supervisor. I can tell the children I'm proof that if you work hard in America you can do better for yourself."

The American dream has faded somewhat for him in recent years. The way she says it feels like someone inadvertently mentioning a dream he himself had forgotten.

"Of course, it is not so impressive. I am supervisor because the others don't speak English. They are mostly refugees from the USSR. Someone has to tell them what the bosses want."

"Not impressive? You speak two different languages."

"Three."

"Three different languages! That's, what, three hundred percent more languages than most people here speak."

She smiles faintly. "I suppose. I've been lucky to have this job. Working second shift gives me time to get the children off to school, and one of the buildings we clean is a gymnasium. Nadya learned to swim there. My oldest picked up tennis there. And if I finish early I can do a lap around the rink. It is very nice."

"The rink?"

"You know, ice rink. When I was a girl I loved to skate, but I was not a great athlete like Marina Kudriavtseva. I met her once, you know."

"Are you happier here?"

She considers for a moment. "Yes, I suppose I am. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Are you happier than you were?"

He starts to say no, because the last time they saw each other he was on top of the world--even losing his championship felt like a minor setback at the time and he was making money hand over fist reporting for Global News--but that is not the truth. The truth is that though his life feels much more difficult in many ways, he is able to enjoy it now. "I am."

"I am glad." She takes another drag off her cigarette and props her chin in her hand. Both of them watch the kid playing the old timer. "Life is difficult, but then something will happen that reminds you that it's worth every last struggle. How is your wife, by the way?"

If he were drinking something he would do a spit-take. "My what?"

"Vassy. Were you not married to her when she left you for Anatoly?"

"No. God, no. Florence and I were never... We were friends. Global News cooked up the story about us being, you know, lovers and things."

"Global and Pravda both, then," she says. "The papers all reported that she abandoned her husband the way Anatoly abandoned me."

"No." Although he supposes he can see how it would make an already sensational story even wilder. "I haven't seen her since Bangkok. She avoids me, which is probably best for both of us."

Svetlana gives him a knowing half-smile. "Sometimes it is better to be apart. I didn't understand that until after we came here. Anatoly defecting changed him, and being left, how is it said, holding the bag? Being left holding the bag changed me. Together we never grew. It was only once he was gone that I realized no matter how much I loved him I needed to love myself more."

Ouch.

"Don't you and Ms. Vassy feel the same way? That you were only able to grow once you put aside the relationship?"

She isn't wrong, but he doesn't tell her that. Losing Florence was only a small part of the long slide he'd had after Melano. Truthfully, he was only able to grow after the housekeeper found him bleeding to death in the hotel bath four years ago. Things only improved after he found out what he was _._

It's funny. All the years he'd been the bad boy of chess, he'd been more than willing to play the lunatic, never knowing there was another name for it. _Manic-depressive_. Somehow it's comforting just to know there is a reason why he does some of the things he does, apart from his just being an asshole.

"Mm." Svetlana gives herself a little shake. "I know that face."

They both look over at the kid. Her eyes are all over the board and she's frowning harder than before.

"That's the face she makes when she doesn't want to admit a checkmate. She... she very much takes after her father. Sometimes I wish he were here to see how much so."

"She's still got a mom who loves her. That's more than a lot of children get." She gives him a sideways look but he's not talking about that either. Outside of therapy he has never told anyone about his father, about his mother, or about the scars he keeps covered with long sleeves, even now, when June is just beginning to turn to July. "Do you live here in town? We should have lunch sometime."

"I don't know if that's a good idea. I am not interested in having a man in my life again, Mr. Trumper."

He blinks at her, confused, for a moment before he realizes where the disconnect is happening. "No, no, I'm not either. I'm not... I'm not exactly the marrying type. Or the dating type. I'm not really anyone's type. But I've enjoyed talking to you. It's nice to be around someone who was there."

She looks at him without speaking for a long moment, then nods and digs through her wallet.

"Here," she says, handing over a business card. I don't have a phone, but if for some reason you want to send letters I can get them here."

He looks down at the plain piece of cardstock. "Svetlana Titova," it reads, "Facilities Maintenance." This too is oddly comforting.

"I'll do that," he tells her. "Good luck out there."

"Same to you." She smiles a brief faint smile and then she's gone, halfway across the park to the kid's side. "Come on, Nadya," she's saying. "We need to pick up your sister from tennis."

"Just one more game. Please, Mama?"

"Tomorrow, _malyshka._ Tomorrow."

Freddie Meyer sits on the bench watching this woman who clearly loves her children and has seen things he never has and never will. Somehow she is still going. Some days it's hard to believe people can so resilient.

As she steers her daughter away Svetlana looks back at him and waves, and he waves back. He can feel the sun and hear the traffic and smell the singular smell of the park. Life is good.

Life is good.


End file.
